Modem homes contain multiple consumer electronic devices that can benefit from interconnection to other electronic devices in the home, for example, displaying the output of a DVD player located in a living room on a television located in a bedroom separated by one or more walls. As the number of interoperable electronic devices in the home environment increases, the need arises for a way to distribute media content from an existing source device to an existing destination device located remotely in the home and to allow the devices to interact remotely.
Most prior art schemes that distribute media content within a home network are relegated to simply downloading digital content off the Internet and displaying it on a personal computer. This scheme restricts access to other media content sources located in the home or to devices that connect the home to external access networks, including TVs, VCRs, set-top boxes, video game consoles and other audio/video devices.
A problem encountered when attempting to distribute analog signals from legacy hardware input sources, such as a DVD player, to remotely located legacy hardware output sources, such as a TV located in a different room, is that the hardware input sources need to be directly connected to the hardware output sources. This configuration limits utilization of input sources and requires additional wiring and components. Legacy hardware switch devices, such as receivers and tuners, can provide switching of media signals. However, these devices work only in an analog domain and are generally limited to devices in close geographic proximity to the switch. Thus these switches do not offer a way to distribute the media content to all areas of the home.
What is needed is a system for and method of distributing media content from a hardware input device to a hardware output device, located remotely, within a home network.